Rich or Royal ??

Well ask anyone and they would say they want to be both rich and powerful, but in practical this is not possible always is it ?? You have to lose control if you want higher pay or profit, you have to forgo higher profit if you want all the control, so what is it that you want ???
This is a fundamental dilemma not only within entrepreneurs but one that kills many innovators and even salaried employees. The conflict between selling their ideas or patented products for royalties and starting their firms. As quoted by Noam Wasserman, a professor from HBS, " The profit motive is one of the major motivations for becoming an entrepreneur, and the one on which past entrepreneurial research has focused, going all the way back to Adam Smith, Joseph Schumpeter, Israel Kirzner, and other pillars of economics." However this is not entirely true is it?? Only later in his research did Wasserman also find the truth about the conflict between rich and royal. People do crazy things to have control over the firm, some wise decisions, some harsh, some motivating, some risky.



Having control over the firm has many disadvantages attached to it sometimes which are out of the blue. While the main hurdle would be finding angel investors who trust the vision of the entrepreneur, the others are limited resources and network. The most common problem is the direct impact of the decisions taken for the growth of the firm on the entrepreneurs pocket. He could remain royal or the king of the firm but as mentioned somewhere entrepreneurs as a whole do not make more than they could make if they were employed by others, and make significantly less than expected from a risk-return perspective.


Ofcourse such a firm would do miracles if the entrepreneur is a great visionary and could access the future market correctly. He could not only make huge personal profits but could expand the company quite faster than his peer where every decision has to be approved by majority of the equity holders who may or maynot share the same vision.



So now back to the fundamental question what is a better option?? Rich or Royal ?
Should a salaried employee consider a high paying firm or one with job satisfaction, should an innovator sell his product for royalties or start a firm of his own, should an entrepreneur continue having complete control over the company or selling control to investors ??
These questions have no correct answer because there is no wrong answer. The correct decision depends on personal vision and management of available resources vs risks involved.


Similar question arises with equity vs debt, which no one can answer. Right decision is not one taken based on current situation but one based on the future. The one which keeps the firm going strong no matter what.



Please note: I'm not a sexist, infact most of the time I'm pro-women, its just easier to write 'he' instead of 'he/she' whenever a pronoun is used for an entrepreneur :)

Worth a mention !!

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries" -- Churchill

"I didn't sign up for this !!! :-s "

Everyone faces this feeling at some point of time wrt everything in life, be in while in a relationship, in a job, after marriage, maybe in friendship also, when you moved into a new house recently, when you start learning something new, during your education ...every instance of life;
This is the first step and first sign of yet another compromise in life, huh!! life which is full of compromises ....
Now you must be asking, where this idiot is heading with such a pathetic start :) well saw Jodha Akbar yesterday, a 3 and 1/2 hr movie. A movie worth watching and definitely very good compared to the recent movies, and Rehman music was simply awesome yet again !!! I guess he made the maximum use of drums :) but the fight scenes could have been better, especially after seeing movies like 300 and Troy in English, the fights did disappoint me a little bit, but as I was mentioning life is full of compromises, Indian audience might not be ready for such a bloodshed considering the fact that the target audience is simply everyone. My overall rating would be around 3.5/5 and a worth watching movie.

Now I have a question, what would you do if you were the emperor of India ?? Forget about regular stupid answers like remove corruption and poverty and hunger and all, make it something innovative, something which people could only dream about, something appealing, would it be building Taj Mahal for your loved one ?? or a pyramid for yourself ? ...would it be building a whole city like Hyderabad or raise buildings like the Emirates Palace and host the worlds costliest horse race ??!!
would it be having all the greatest composers of the time in you palace or having a scripture written on you ;) !! ?? What would it be ??? what would you do for yourself if you are given all the power in the world to leave an everlasting mark behind you !!!



Remember that all great people are remembered only when they left something materialistic behind them to the world, many might differ, some might even go to the extent of mocking my judgement but it remains to be the truth. People remember Ashoka only as the king who planted trees along the roads but not for the peace he tried to restore in India, people remember xyz for Taj or Pyramids or ... blah blah but not for the immense wise decisions they made, how many King Solomon's do people remember ???


Gods greatest gift to humanity is forgetfulness, and it is also his greatest curse. Selective memory is a great gift if you have the control over what to remember :) .... People tend to forget the good done to them or the help they received, but develop hatred easily. Being an agnostic it might be strange to come from me, but if there is someone called God he could think of a secondary memory disk attached to our hearts ;)
Maybe the main memory can have an archive of the sad memories as a backup and the secondary disk in our hearts will have all the happy moments ... sounds nice right ;)



So so so ... to all the jobless patient people still reading this post and feeling "I didn't sign up for all this !!! :-s ", welcome to Saaketh's world of arbitrariness. You'll see many many more of these coming in future, so be prepared :)



Oh & yah, this one friend of mine lets call her D is coming back from US after a 1month trip and she is supposed to bring me lots and lots of chocolates, and a champagne bottle and then more chocolates :) and I think I have some nice occasions to celebrate in the next 2weeks, so lets see.

British Queen apologises to six-year-old girl
Do you think something like this could ever happen in India?? well actually I think India would very soon see one such day with the ever increasing percentage of well educated politicians in parliament. Forget about the political strength, but compare Mr. Manmohan 1v1 with any of his peers around the world, compare Kalam with his peers, it does make you proud in the end doesn't it :)
And I would say these are only the first of the many politicians to come in future who would infact be bold and strong enough to make even better decisions.

Having said all this nonsense I ask you to wait for the next post and I promise to make it interesting than this one !! :)


-Peace

Castro Resigns :( !!!

NOTE: The following views are my personal and have nothing to do as an Indian !! :)

Well you always have the enthusiasm to post more than 1 on the 1st day, dont you :)

Soo .... Fidel Castro resigns, one of the greatest and living legends of our time and a great leader ends his tenure. People might differ his ways, human rights activists might squeal but the fact remains that he is one of the longest serving leaders in the world and is now stepping down voluntarily owing to his health @ the age of 81.

" At age 32, Castro led a band of guerrillas who overthrew a corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He went on to become a thorn in Washington's side by embracing communism and cozying up to the Soviet Union. " writes CNN

Despite all the rallies by his critics on his counter revolutionary activities, there are no streets in Cuba named after Castro, and no statues or peso bills bearing his image and compare that with India where every street is named after a leader and the name of the airport keeps changing with a change in the political party, isn't dictatorship beautiful in the hands of the right person.

Castro has maintained power largely through popular appeals to the Cuban people an ideal leadership quality I would say. Did you know that there were 638 attempts by the CIA on Castro's life, ... SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT !!!! and he retires with dignity. As Castro says, if surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, he would win the gold medal :).

I guess telugu directors and stroy writers could get inspired by his stories, for the starters there was a mafia types shooting, a diving suit which was fungal infected, an exploding cigar, exploding clams for heavens sake, his lover joining hands with CIA to kill him with a poisonous cold cream and Castro giving her a gun and asking her to shoot him but she could'nt, and finally there was the same old slow poison which also failed.

His speeches remain the most inspiring and he transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. People think money can do or buy anything/anyone but US, economically one of the most advanced countries could neither buy him nor could kill him. Now THAT is what I call power, thanks to the loyal aura he built around him.

Cuba might see democracy after Castro, or it might continue under the leadership of his brother or cousins or children, but one of the greatest leaderships the world has seen is coming to an end, and the Cuba will definitely miss the inspiration his speeches gave/give in all tough times.

I'm just very selective about the reality I accept ;)

Lo and Behold !!!

Saaketh Enters the digital age FINALLY !!!!!!!

Yes, though I'm a software engineer I have never been tech-savvy nor had the enthuse to keep up with the rest of the world on technical advancements (I still use Nokia 1100 and I have NO plans of changing it :D, it just has no match), but I guess it's high time I change that and here I am leaving my first foot-steps in the digital world :)

Well I'm not sure for how long I'd continue but then a thousand miles journey starts with one step, and here I'm aint I :)

I'll try my best to keep the blog away from sentimental/emotional and personal posts, and will do my best in avoiding 'chat lingo' but then can't promise you fellas :D

Note: You'll mostly find controversial and most of the time arbit topics, all views expressed on this blog are to be considered completely my personal and if you find a post seriously erroneous feel free to drop a mail.